Taking Back The Music

Psalm 149:1
Sing to the Lord a new song......

The photo above is of our home "nest" where we worship every Saturday night.
In fact this photo was shot the week before we held our first meeting of VRC. It was April of 2013.

Worship and the style of music that we play has been changing over the years.
Debbie Handy and I have been playing together since 1991.
Wayne Wimpee and I met in a youth choir back in 1968.
Barry Hooks came on board as rhythm guitarist in 2006.
Such a knowing of each other provides us with a comfort of being able to follow what each is doing when we worship together. 

One of the things that God has developed in us is what I call playing "Take Back" songs. By this, I mean songs that we grew up listening to on the radio. Songs that everyone knows. We will take one of these songs and change it around to reflect goodness of God and His desire to bring salvation and healing.
The very first song I ever took back was Lynard Skynard's "Free Bird". That was in 2000. I'll never forget the first time we played it at The House Of Blue (our first recovery meeting)...with the first chords, the expression on peoples faces was like "can they do this? Is this really happening?"

The idea of using such music in our recovery meeting was that most of the folks who came were not very much attracted to hymns and church music. It did not grab their attention or their hearts. But you do a secular song that has been rewritten to point to God ,and maybe....just maybe, they will let their guard down for a brief moment. In doing so, they become more open and receptive to what you are going to say.

I've written all of this to arrive at this point.
Last Wednesday night, we took VRC worship on the road to the Church@Wills Creek. Most of music set for this meeting was comprised of take back songs. Once again, the Spirit of God came down with the opening chords and opened hearts. We started with Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody". Very in your face kind of words...."It may be the devil....or it may be the Lord...but you're gonna have to serve somebody."

We moved into the Monkee's "I'm A Believer"......People were up...they were clapping...they were yelling.....the whole time we're playing and worshiping, we're also praying..."More Lord! Come and prepare hearts to receive from you."

Up next was Bill Withers "Ain't No Sunshine".
"Ain't no sunshine living wrong......only darkness every day." life without Christ is merely existence. It is moving from moment to moment without any purpose. Such living drives us toward drugs and drink to numb the pain. To escape this way of living.

The only song we did on this night that wasn't a take back was a tune by David Crowder that has become synonymous with people in recovery...."All My Hope".
A very honest look at where we've come from.....our encounter with Christ...and the reality that we have no chance at real life without Him in our lives.
There is mention of prison....chains and shackles.....of being forgiven and set free. Such only stirred the room as shouts of praise and clapping broke out as we sang.

The last song on our set list was one that conveys the message to "let go and let God." In fact the name of the song is "LET IT BE" by the Beatles. 
"And in my hour of darkness, He is living deep inside of me...Speaking words of wisdom, let it be".

After the meeting was over, the equipment loaded and I climbed into my car. I was filled with a deep, deep satisfaction that we had indeed worshiped God. That we had been true to who He has called us to be (as worship team) and we had brought to bare our history of the music we grew up and played it for the glory of God. Then one last thought came to me before I drove away. Growing up, all I ever heard was how our kind of music was the "devil's music"....
A smile came to me and I said, "Well, it may have started that way...but not tonight. Tonight it was the King's music". 

God on you...
mbb